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Last December in Paris, 195 countries reached a landmark agreement committing nearly every country to lowering greenhouse-gas emissions in response to the effects of climate change. The Paris agreement holds a great deal of promise. Negotiating countries dedicated themselves to preventing global…

Consulting people about the aid they receive is recognized as central to improving the quality of humanitarian assistance. This is particularly valuable in insecure contexts, such as Afghanistan and Somalia, where humanitarian staff have limited opportunities for face-to-face contact with the…

Für den Oxford-Wirtschaftswissenschaftler Paul Collier liegen die Dinge klar. Angela Merkel ist verantwortlich für die Flüchtlingskrise. „Wer sonst?“. Er weiß auch ganz genau, warum Deutschland so gehandelt hat: „Deutschland gefällt sich offensichtlich in der Retterrolle“. Es wäre leicht, dies als…

Executive Summary In 2011, the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) principals adopted the Transformative Agenda to give new momentum to the 2005 Humanitarian Reform and strengthen leadership, coordination and accountability in humanitarian action. Their ultimate objective was to enhance…

For Oxford economics professor Paul Collier things are crystal clear: “Angela Merkel is responsible for the refugee crisis. Who else?” It would be easy to dismiss Collier if he were not part of a growing chorus that sees Germany’s refugee policy as a morality play — with Merkel in the lead, chasing…

Few people are usually passionate about taxation. Nevertheless, for more than a week now, the tax settlement between HMRC and Google has inflamed the passions of the British public as well as politicians. A number of sparks fuel the debate: There is the question whether the tax settlement is a…

The 10th Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization (WTO), held in Nairobi in December 2015, yielded only limited results. While the United States and the European Union called for the conclusion of the so-called Doha negotiating round, developing and emerging countries expressed a…

When reports emerged late last year that researchers from CERT/CC, a respected American network security team, had helped the FBI to hack the anonymity network Tor, IT security experts were worried. Bodies like CERT/CC (the CERT Coordination Center), Computer Emergency Response Teams (CERTs) and…

Ende des vergangenen Jahres versetzten Hinweise auf eine Kooperation zwischen dem FBI und einem der bekanntesten US-amerikanischen IT-Sicherheitsteams die Netzgemeinde in Aufruhr. Demnach sollen Forscher des renommierten Cert/CC dem FBI dabei geholfen haben, das Anonymisierungsnetzwerk Tor zu…

Now that Germany has joined the fight against the Islamic State in Syria, its planned deployment of troops to Mali has fallen into the background even more. But the United Nations' peacekeeping operation in Mali is a critical component of the peace process currently underway in the West African…

Die Beteiligung am Krieg gegen den „Islamischen Staat“ (IS) drängt den bevorstehenden Bundeswehreinsatz in Mali in den Hintergrund. Auch hier möchte die Bundesregierung Hunderte Soldaten ins Ausland schicken. Der Blauhelmeinsatz ist entscheidend für den seit 2012 andauernden Friedensprozess. Statt…

In 2015, the number of asylum applications to the European Union reached an all-time high. But numbers alone do not explain why the events of 2015 were commonly referred to as a refugee (or migrant) “crisis.” It is important to contextualize the high number of entries against an EU that is not only…

Das Jahr 2015 markiert den vorläufigen Höhepunkt des Trends steigender Asylanträge in der Europäischen Union. Nach Angaben des europäischen Statistikamts ersuchten allein in der ersten Jahreshälfte rund 400000 Menschen internationalen Schutz in der EU; eine Steigerung von etwa 85 Prozent gegenüber…

Bei der derzeit stattfindenden WTO-Ministerkonferenz entscheidet die Weltgemeinschaft über die Doha-Runde: Die Erfolgsaussichten sind gering, denn die großen Industriemächte setzen lieber auf Freihandelsabkommen wie TTIP; Sozial- und Umweltstandards bleiben auf der Strecke, genauso wie…

This collection focuses on the impact of the changing global distribution of power on the EU's energy policy and ability to project its approach to energy-related issues abroad. The chapter discusses the EU as an actor in global energy, and shows that the EU – short of a strong set of policy tools –…

Publicity in Human Rights Foreign Policy Executive Summary NGOs and states alike can publicly criticize repressive governments. Such “shaming” serves to attract attention to actions perceived as wrongful. Shaming seeks to increase the costs for offenders and thus acts as a deterrence mechanism. In…

Energy Geopolitics Are Back in Europe In European capitals, an increasingly assertive Russia has triggered renewed concerns related to the security of EU gas supplies. EU leaders have vivid memories of January 2009 when Russian gas supplies were cut for 13 days, affecting a total of 16 EU member…